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Occupy Wall Street Could be Disaster for Democrats
Commentary Magazine ^ | 10-4-11 | Abe Greenwald

Posted on 10/07/2011 5:08:25 AM PDT by SJackson

You know real change is upon us because the celebrity left has come together. Susan Sarandon, Russell Simmons​, Michael Moore, Roseanne Barr, Mark Ruffalo, Yoko Ono, and Alec Baldwin are speaking out. And when this many famous millionaires get preachy at the same time it can only mean one thing: they’ve had it up to here with the rich.

Just as when hundreds of protestors claim police brutality their next logical step is to demand a larger and more powerful state, of course.

If you’re having problems grasping the nuances of the Occupy Wall Street movement, you haven’t been paying attention to the present-day left. And good for you.

The self-demonizing millionaires and state-worshipping police haters barely scratch the surface of the ideological dyslexia at work. One Occupy Wall Street member’s proposed “list of demands” calls first for nativist “trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market,” and then for one-worldist “open borders migration,” so that “anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.” The document, like the motivation behind it, is a hodgepodge of paranoia, entitlement, self-pity, self-righteousness, class warfare, and economic illiteracy. If this spotty protest moment becomes broad-based and loud the thorough airing of modern-day leftism will prove to be a conservative’s election-year dream come true.

On Monday, with Occupy Wall Street spawning copycat demonstrations in Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere, the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne asked hopefully, “Can the left stage a Tea Party?” I don’t know if it can but if I were a GOP strategist I’d be praying that it does.

The true leftist agenda is so surreal Republicans couldn’t satirize it if they tried. (“Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.”) These leftists are so reckless that an extended, high profile “occupation” movement of national reach would bury liberalism months before November 2012. It would, in short, function for Democrats exactly as Democrats had hoped (in vain) that the Tea Party would function for Republicans in 2010. In unhinged “Occupiers,” conservatives would find an easy and clean target to run against and destroy. What’s more, this would force Barack Obama either to publicly walk back all the class-warfare rhetoric that the protesters have taken to heart or to sink as one of their number. He has long nurtured dual personae, vacillating in political style between inflammatory community-organizer and conciliatory high-office holder. A large national Occupier movement would require him to end that game once and for all.

Tea Partiers didn’t dash conservative hopes in 2010 because they were on the right side of history. While they demanded smaller government and less spending we watched Europe nearly collapse under the weight of regulation and entitlements. Their message made sense to Americans. But watching Russell Simmons—the anti-capitalist zillionaire—meditate with nose-pierced 20-somethings on the hope that more stimulus will fall like rain is unlikely to sway independent voters. In the age of Solyndra, the Occupiers’ call for “a fast track process” to bring “the alternative energy economy up to energy demand,” (Demand Five) isn’t going to resonate. Protestors’ appeal for the U.S. to stop supporting Israel is a non-starter in an America where Christian conservatives and Jewish liberals have been holding Obama’s feet to the fire on his hostility to the Jewish state.

With all these ill-suited messages and hypocritical messengers it’s easy to overlook the one timely half-truth among the Occupiers’ gripes: government and big business have grown entirely too close. I say half-truth because the protestors fail to understand that the road to change runs through Washington and not Wall Street. As long as government tries to pick private-sector winners, green or otherwise, corporatism endures. And as long as regulatory regimes prohibit large-scale investment by all but the most seasoned lobbyists, the market will remain less open than it should be. Those have never been easy points for conservatives to make, but with the incoherent Occupy Wall Street taking the opposite position the American public might first be more open to a little counterintuitive analysis.


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections
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1 posted on 10/07/2011 5:08:28 AM PDT by SJackson
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To: SJackson

These are the same parasites protesting in Greece. Vermin all.


2 posted on 10/07/2011 5:11:49 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.)
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To: SJackson
They hate "greedy corporations," and they want Big Govt to save them.

Are they not aware of history, at all?


3 posted on 10/07/2011 5:13:47 AM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: SJackson

Gosh, I wonder how much extra taxes all those ‘compassionate’ Leftists have voluntarily paid over the years. No extra taxes??? Who’d a thunk it???

We must win the 2012 election. This wonderful and once powerful country hangs in the balance.


4 posted on 10/07/2011 5:15:46 AM PDT by originalbuckeye
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To: SJackson

Nothing says hypocrisy like Alec Baldwin (paid $1 million to shill for Capital One) addressing a crowd of trust fund babies, union shills, and overborrowed 30 yr old professional graduate students, against “corporate greed”

I would assume the residences and neighborhoods of Baldwin Sarandon Paltrow al are well protected from looting by their homies ... or maybe not, and this is what it will take to drive these idiots off the stage


5 posted on 10/07/2011 5:17:53 AM PDT by silverleaf (Common sense is not so common - Voltaire)
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To: SJackson

“Occupy Wall Street Could be Disaster for Democrats”
‘Could be????
Public demonstrations = Government failure. P E R I O D

What success can this administration claim if the very people who catapulted them into office are demonstrating in the streets?

How many times do I have to jump through my own a$# hole to come up with a logic which makes it otherwise??????


6 posted on 10/07/2011 5:18:13 AM PDT by SMARTY ("Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. " Edmund Burke)
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To: SJackson

It should be noted that the mob which destroyed Democrat Hubert Humphry’s chance of winning the presidency in 1968 was actually composed of America’s very left wing. Now, once again, we have a Democrat in power, but this time the President actually embraces that very same mob. My, how the political climate has changed.


7 posted on 10/07/2011 5:19:03 AM PDT by Melchior
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To: SJackson
Susan Sarandon, Russell Simmons​, Michael Moore, Roseanne Barr, Mark Ruffalo, Yoko Ono, and Alec Baldwin are speaking out.

If the neurons in these brains were combined to form an equivalent amount of C4 explosive, there wouldn't be enough for a good sneeze. Furthermore, why do I give a crap what these people think? Yoko Ono? You've got to be kidding.

8 posted on 10/07/2011 5:19:26 AM PDT by econjack
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To: SJackson

Lsst time folks toke to the streets in a Presidential cycle in mob fashion American’s chose Law and Order rather than chaos. I trust the American folks to make the same choice in November 2012. In fact it was the Democrat nominee Humphrey who at least mildly embraced the chaos in the streets to his own peril as I remember.


9 posted on 10/07/2011 5:20:06 AM PDT by vicar7 ("Polls are for strippers and cross-country skiers" Sarah Palin)
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To: SJackson

Very good analysis, thanks for posting. I agree, Occupy Wall Street is a dream come true for us in 2012.


10 posted on 10/07/2011 5:20:38 AM PDT by C. Edmund Wright
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To: silverleaf

Nothing says hypocrisy like Michael Moore who slammed tax subsidies given to movie makers in Michigan, then weeks later took a million dollar subsidy to make “Capitalism, a love story”.


11 posted on 10/07/2011 5:22:46 AM PDT by cripplecreek (MLB Playoff thread http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2786167/posts)
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To: Travis McGee

That...is awesome.
Making a beeline to my favorite Leftist now...


12 posted on 10/07/2011 5:23:01 AM PDT by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com/)
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To: originalbuckeye

“It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.” Albert Camus


13 posted on 10/07/2011 5:24:42 AM PDT by SMARTY ("Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. " Edmund Burke)
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To: SJackson
The document, like the motivation behind it, is a hodgepodge of paranoia, entitlement, self-pity, self-righteousness, class warfare, and economic illiteracy.

And the rookie Hussein is pimping it.

14 posted on 10/07/2011 5:24:43 AM PDT by Libloather (The epitome of civility.)
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To: ctdonath2
Just like the disaster in Chicago in 1968.
15 posted on 10/07/2011 5:24:47 AM PDT by scooby321
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To: SJackson
It's Simple:

America Loving Conservatives vs America Hating Liberals

The only flags you see at a leftist march are being stomped on or burned.

16 posted on 10/07/2011 5:26:35 AM PDT by TexasCajun (Fast & Furious , Solyndra & Light Squared would be enough to impeach any White President !!)
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To: Travis McGee
And what's extra-awesome about that pic is everything noted (and much more) is optional. Save maybe "shirt by Gap", they could get by just fine without any of that stuff.

Clueless whiners.

17 posted on 10/07/2011 5:26:49 AM PDT by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com/)
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To: scooby321

Here’s to that!


18 posted on 10/07/2011 5:27:32 AM PDT by comps4spice (Liberalism is a threat to life and liberty in the USA.)
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To: scooby321

Tell me more. I wasn’t aware of much beyond “Mommy and Daddy” in 1968.


19 posted on 10/07/2011 5:29:02 AM PDT by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com/)
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To: C. Edmund Wright
You're right however I have my doubts as to whether or not he Pubbies are savvy enough to notice this and articulate it in a way that reasonates past the MSM.

Putting Mitch McConnell out front and center to deliver the message ain't gonna do it.

20 posted on 10/07/2011 5:30:28 AM PDT by capydick (''Life's tough.......it's even tougher if you're stupid.'')
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